Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1887-04-09

THE GOVERNMENT CLERK.
why There 10 20 Much Uns.tisfsctor,
work In tho Departments at Washington
Aged and Helpless Employees.
An old man committed suicide here
the other day because after twenty years
service under the government he saw
nothing for his old age but the poor
house writes Washington correspond
emit Of the Philadelphia Record. This
little incident has drawn the attention Of
the thoughtful (there are thoughtful
people in Washington, though you might
not think IT'D anew to the problem which
must be solved before stable civil ser
vice, with all the improvements in ad-
ministrstion which that would make
possible, can be established. The just
reason why the public service here in
Warrington does not get better men and
better work out of the men it has got is
that it does not offer career to those
who enter it.
Almost oil the younger men and all the
younger women in the departments here
are simply waiting for something to turn
up-something better, of course, than
that which they've got. Some of them
are trying to make straight paths for
themselves out of the government SER
vice into the world of affairs. These are
the most capable, or, at least, the more
ambitious few. The many are just
dreaming along from day to day
waiting for fairy gifts, and meanwhile
wasting their time in framing the wishes
which they will make when the fairies
arrive.
The man who looks upon the position
he holds in the public service as the
opening of career is SO rare that 1
have never met him. Consequently, as
a general rule, the government clerk
does his work perfunctorily, spends his
salary heedlessly. and let's the future
take care of itself in a sublime and yet
audacious confidence that it will. When
he discovers himself growing old in the
service his Illusions begin to vanish, and
he soon finds himself looking forward to
the future with dread and distrust
which the are very oppoeites of reckless
confidence which he had made the fabric
OF 80 many DIRE ms.
Strange rs it may Seem. there are
many old men in the executive depart
ments, most of whom have grown old in
the government service. heard the
other day of the appointment to clerk
ship of man who had passed the three
score and ten milestone, but such case
does not occur often. The gray heads of
the different bureaus of the government
came into them as a general rule before
the war or during the war as brown or
as black as yours. Most Of these old
men are unfit for further duty. Yet they
are continued on the rolls, reporting for
duty every day that they are able and
performing such portion of their task as
their feeble hands can grasp. And
when q promotion is to be made from
one grade to another the oldest man in
the lower grade is the man who is most
likely to get the position.
There is really no other way except to
dismiss the poor old fellows outright,
but that even the new officials hesitate
to do. They can not steel themselves to
the painful duty of cutting off the only
means by which these men can live. But,
these men are SO much dead
wood-stumbling blocks in the way of
better men. They ought to be swept
out of sight. They neither work them
selves nor give others chance to work
President Arthur saw plainly what 90
many others public men fail to see, that
you can not secure permanent business
like civil service by simply guarding the
entrance to it, You must guarantee the
possibility of career in it with due
provision for the old age which must e.
sentially close every career.
He saw that stable civil service de-
nands civil-pension list. Not that he |
advocated a civil-pension list. It will be |
! long while-s week after never, I trust |
before any American statesman advo-
,ates that. But he saw that government
Jerks, like other men and women, must
COL IccoOuoS1y SURE VI WIG lutuI0 VI OIucI
o work satisfactorily and oontentedly in
he present. They must, in other words,
eel assured that after serving the gov
for twenty or forty years they
viii not be turned out to starve on the
'canty savings of their scanty salaries.
Mr.. James G. Thompson, an old Phil
'delphian, has thought out plan which
eems to me to afford better remedy
or the difficulty I have indicated than
ny other have heard of. His idea is
o establish, by authority of congress
nd under the supervision Of the heads
I departments, civil-service insurance
nd pension association, made up of the
in any government Office in
be United States who choose to belong
0 it. He would have them agree that /
er cent. of their respective salaries
heuld be deducted ct the first OF every
,onth by the disbursing officer paying ,